Three weeks in the West, part seven

June 1, Chaco Canyon: My Lady Friend wanted to take a hike. So we set off from the base of the mesa behind Pueblo Bonito, got turned around a bit on the cliffs, and then we found the trail that led to Pueblo Alto.

The botanical tour photos that preceded this post came from our two-mile trek across the mesa. As one crosses the mesa to Pueblo Alto, it's possible to see overgrown sections of the Chacoan road system.

[By the way: follow the next link if you want to know more about the astronomical alignments that were employed in Chacoan architecture.]

We left Chaco in the afternoon and drove east toward Cuba and then Abiquiu. We'd planned to camp out that way, but it seemed better just to continue toward Santa Fe. After a little more getting turned around, we arrived at a campground above Santa Cruz Lake, where we tried not to let the things we'd just read about encountering bears get the best of us.




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Cerro Pedernal: you might recognize it from O'Keeffe's paintings.




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Here's a link to the end of day six (the last of four parts).

Or you can go forward to day eight.